An Unreliable Narrator
by LithiumDoll
Summary: He doesn't think he's better than they are.


He doesn't think he's better than they are, but okay, what Nate finds a little weird - what Nate finds _really weird _- is how none of them hold grudges. They bitch a little, they put on a show, but it's all about face. They remember, sure. They learn, of course they learn, but they don't remember like he remembers or learn like he learns.

They don't hate like he hates.

They lie, they steal, at least one of them is a stone cold killer - two, if rumour makes fact - but it's never _personal_. When it all goes south, they walk away and they don't carry anything with them.

And that's weird. That's _wrong_ and it affronts the priest in him in ways he can't give shape to, except that even the devil can quote scripture. Even criminals can have virtues.

Like Eliot, with the cooking and the chess and that smile he has when he thinks no one's watching. Trying to be more than a hitter, trying to be better than he is. And it's not going to work, because you know what it is? It's cover. It's window dressing.

Sophie, Hardison, Parker – what they take can be replaced. Their victims are always insured, always rich because the poor have nothing worth taking. What Eliot steals is lives and there's no insurance company on Earth that can give someone back their father, or brother, or uncle. Their son.

He ran Eliot right to ground once, put him in a Bolivian jail, and he keeps waiting for the guy to mention it. You know, maybe while they're watching the football or whatever. "Pass the chips, oh, and by the way? I owe you a broke hand, three bust ribs and a concussion." The worst thing Eliot says he'll do is withhold beer if his team loses, and they always do, and he never does.

Maybe you can only hold a grudge if you care.

So Eliot's just fooling himself but you know, who isn't? Nate only resents those seconds between a smile and a memory when Eliot fools him too. He doesn't know if Eliot has killed anyone while he's been part of the team. Honestly? He doesn't want to know.

And Sophie. Hell, Nate _shot_ Sophie, but she shot him first so it could be she thinks they're even. She doesn't talk about it, but she'll dredge other trivia from their past on a daily basis. Sometimes she's teasing and sometimes she's throwing history down like a challenge, seeing how much attention he's paying; making sure she matters enough to be remembered. The actress is desperate not to be forgotten but the grifter has to disappear and whatever he says, he can't win. He pretends to forget and suddenly he's looking at two days of pointed comments and pop quizzes; he says he remembers and she smiles bright and brittle and spends the next job obsessing over the minute details of her personae.

Perfecting that damn voice.

He wonders whether she'll tell him what her name is, if he asks the right way. When she's across the room, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in the most unconscious gesture she'll ever make, he tries to match names to her.

Angel, Anna, Annabel, Anya: none of them work. So her name isn't Sophie, but it's not Jenny either. He thinks that's okay, it's just he can't look at her without wondering how much she's conning him. Ten percent? Fifty? Eighty? There's something real there, but he has no idea if either of them will recognise it if they see it.

They almost fell in love with who they almost were and maybe that was almost enough. Almost.

Nate never caught up to Parker, thank God. It's fifty-fifty whether she'd have killed him or considered it a sign of affection. She's crazy. She's really, seriously, straight out of Bedlam insane and she doesn't have to hold grudges because no one crosses her twice.

He thinks _she_ does look like an Anna, but it's not like she'd know.

The team, he gets it. They'd all worked alone and then they got a taste, just a little taste, of what it's like to stand next to someone who knows who you really are. They probably told themselves they could handle it, maybe they'd just do it over the weekends.

He'd never have thought that would hook Parker: the missing family she never had is just too neat and, Christ, she probably blew up her foster parents' house.

And they all knew that, but he'd blinked and now Sophie is molding her into a younger sister and Eliot is too, in his way. Hardison's feelings are nowhere near as familial. Nate thinks he should warn Hardison, but then he remembers he's not a father any more and Hardison isn't his to warn.

And it's not like he did such a great job the first time around.

Maybe Parker won't eat the kid alive. Or maybe they're each other's brand of crazy.

Doesn't matter anyway, because Hardison is a ghost and he can look after himself. He was coming into his game while Nate was losing his, but Nate tells himself he'd have taken him down, sooner or later. Then he remembers he's a liar now too.

The kid is smart in a way none of the others are, he's smart like Maggie's smart. Like Sammy was smart. Sam wanted to be an astronaut and he could have been; Nate regrets trying to pass that dream to Hardison, but he can't shift the impulse to give him_ something _better.

So, anyway, they don't hold grudges and they've forgiven Sophie. They won't trust the voice again, but they'll move past it. And he can't. That's a punch line, so he laughs.

"What's funny?" Sophie asks, as if she doesn't know.

He shrugs. "Most things, if you really look at them. I mean, really look at them."

"Look at them through the bottom of a bottle, you mean." Her perfume isn't sweet, or flowery; it's some other kind of scent that's older and closer to incense, and that's kind of funny too. The Church of Liars, grifting as a vocation. The scent is stronger as she leans over his shoulder to take the glass from his hand.

"That's what I mean," he nods agreeably.

"Will this be enough? Sticking it to IYS, bringing down Ian Blackpoole?"

"Maybe. Maybe it will be." He reaches for the bottle but it doesn't seem to be there any more. Instead it's her eyes, piercing his.

"Nate, how could it _possibly_ be enough?"

He stares at her and she stares back. He opens his mouth, but hers stays closed. He's not sure what he means to say but it isn't, "How? How do you walk away?"

He can see all the easy answers in her expression, fading one by one until he recognises her vaguely as the girl he met over a stolen painting a decade ago. "You choose what matters."

"That simple, huh?"

"If it was, everyone would do it." Her smile is sweet and sharp. "Some days it's easy to remember you wanted to be a priest."

He reaches halfway towards where the whiskey was and then lets his arm fall back to the table. "This doesn't feel very holy."

"No, but we're swimming in your guilt and the judgement, well. You've always been good at that." She sits in the chair next to him and smoothes her skirt over her knees, a pair of glasses short of the rehab psychologist. "What's the matter, Nate?"

He leans back and runs a hand over his eyes; sobriety is encroaching around the edges. "Call it a crisis of faith."

"Sounds painful."

He turns his head enough to look at her and then finds he can't quite do it, but the table has an interesting veneer. "I don't think I'm better than you."

She sighs softly. "I know you don't _think_ you think you're better than me. Us."

They both laugh a little, it doesn't help much. "I don't. I really don't."

Her voice is almost fond when she says, "Sure, Nate. Like all good tragic heroes, your virtues are disguised as flaws."

It sounds like a quote, but he can't place it. He can look at her now, though. So he does. "You really don't care I was chasing you all, all that time?"

"Why would we? You only chased us until we caught you," says the voice. The bottle of whiskey slides back in front of him like a reward.


End file.
